French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner attended an event at the Herrlisheim Jewish cemetery, near the eastern French city of Strasbourg, on Friday to denounce anti-Semitism and remember Holocaust victims after 37 gravestones and a monument to Holocaust victims in the cemetery were found sprayed with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti last Tuesday.
The desecration was discovered hours before an attacker sprayed gunfire near the Christmas market of Strasbourg, killing three people.
The French government sounded the alarm last month over a sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts this year in France, home to Europe's largest Jewish population.
Police registered a 69% rise in the number of anti-Semitic acts in the first nine months of 2018, compared with the same period last year.
